Yesterday was stormy except for a few morning hours, which happened to be high tide, so we decided not to take the boats out to the inlet. Instead we drove to Edisto State Park and walked on the beach there. The clouds were low, dark and scudding, the beach scoured clean from the extreme high tide earlier in the day. We walked the mile or so to Jeremy Inlet and found the falling tide had exposed what could have been all the shells from the other part of the beach. Piles of shells, fields of shells, strips of shells lined up by water currents. No memorable fossil finds there, but fun just the same. I started noticing all the different textures strewn across the beach - so amazing. I picked up a few pieces of shell for the fun of drawing them: Fossil turtle shell, cockle fragment, cracked conch fragment, fossil sting ray barb, fossil tooth of bull shark, jingle shell, sand collar (egg case of a Shark Eye), and another conch fragment.
When I finally looked back up the beach, a squall was practically upon us. We hurried back up the now desolate stretch of sand and dunes and ran into the camp ground to get out of the driving rain. The windspeed dropped dramatically within the thick tangle of Live Oak and Palmetto Palms. RV campers were set up here and there, some seeming to be settled for the holidays - there were wreaths on the doors and Christmas lights twinkled on miniature trees on the dashboards. We scurried along the worn limestone path just behind the dunes until we finally reached the car. The rest of the afternoon was stormy until a cool wind pushed away the clouds long enough for the full moon to peek through for an hour, then the storms returned.
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